The Fi-cord 101 Minature Audio Tape Recorder

What we have here is a push button operated single motor belt driven pocket tape recorder, that
was made for the English company Fi-cord by a manufacturer in Switzerland. This was in the
early 1960's and while there may have been other and better tiny machines available in those
days, I can't think of any at the moment. There were though many partucalarly nasty things that
called themselves tape recorders about as well. This early example of the Fi-cord 101 series
uses special reduced size 2 Inch diameter spools of standard 1/4 Inch magnetic tape, and was
intended for office dictation use. I assume that this heavy little machine runs at 1 7/8ths, and
would seem to have DC bias and a simple permanent magnet as an erase head. It also has a
seperate permanent magnet mounted on the deck for 'Fast Erase'. Using permanent magnets as
erase heads was quite common with non-Hi-Fi machines of those days. It makes the tape magnetic
(!) and high frequencys are lost, but it vaguely works. I suppose this tough little recorder was
made some 10 years before the very advanced Nagra SN was introduced, and possibly goes to
show how rapidly magnetic tape recording was progressing in the 1960's.

The Fi-cord runs on 2 AA cells, which might have been quite new battery technology for the time,
and has a rather nice and simple latching push-button 'user interface'. The machine was also
designed for remote control via a playback docking unit, as you could hook a length of string to
the end of the pinch roller arm to make the transport stop and go. The arrival of the Phillips
compact cassette introduced in 1964 did not help with sales...

I have to own up that I know very little about this little machine. It is rather nicely made from
folded and extruded gold-anodized Aluminium. Though I imagine that its audio performance falls
somewhat short of it's rather fine standard of construction. (I find the blue 'Bondeen' outer
wrapper is rather nostalgic, as about 20 years ago I used to buy the stuff for the company I
worked for.) Actually a great deal of electronic equipment used this 'Marl blue' textured platic
coated aluminum sheet in the 1970's and 80's, and I have a theory that it was because it was part
of the IBM house colour scheme of the time.)

Unfortunately while a few spots of oil and a general clean up got this machine transporting tape,
the audio electronics seem rather dead. As with most compact tape recorders of the time, the
mechanism is an interesting exercise in Heath Robinson 'minimalism'. Speed regulation involves
the use of a light bulb filament and one transistor, and the capstan (which in itself is a
considerable advance on those machines that just drove the take-up spool) is a rather nice co-
axial contra-rotating assembly that combines both capstan pulley and a fairly massive little
flywheel. This probably gave the machine some imunity to movement induced speed variation,
and something vaguely similar was used in the Sony Walkman of some 18 years later. The Fi-
cord's substantial DC motor drives this capstan/flywheel by a long flat Neoprene (?) belt, that
also drives a rather convenient mechanical tape counter. The clever series of push-button
linkages operates a quite usable set of fast forward and rewind speeds. (The Nagra SN while a
genuine professional 'studio' recorder in miniature has no fast forward and a quaint hand-cranked
rewind.)

There are two printed circuit boards inside the Fi-cord 101: the single transistor speed regulator
board, and the record/replay electronics. The rather elegant push-button system both actuates the
mechanics of the tape transport as well as moving a number of spring-loaded switch contacts.
These directly slide against various copper contact pads on the underside of the audio PCB to
change to amplifier from replay to record (just switching the input from the head to microphone -
bias and erase electronics not used). The prominent silver tube in the above image is a nicely
done battery holder, and the two AA cells are loaded from the outside of the machine and held in
place by a nicely knurled screw cap.

In all this is a rather clever and finely made little recorder, it was probably quite expensive and I
whish I knew rather more about it. Later Fi-cord went on to introduce the bigger and much better
202 series of audio recorders, but these were actually made in England by Erskine Labororties in
Scarborough. (Still had a blue Bondeen casing though!)

To the Portables Page

Bob Marriot sent me this nice picture of his Stellavox SM5 deck mechanism. It's not the same
as the Fi-cord of course, well actually the whole machine looks very much better engineered.
But there does seem to be a certian similarity.

In October 2004 Mr Alan Jarratt was kind enough to contact me about FiCord and I am very
pleased to included is valuable contribution below:

FI-CORD INTERNATIONAL

I first heard of Fi-Cord in the late '50s when I was asked about it by the president of an
American customer of my Company selling office systems/business machines. I believe he had
heard of the Fi-cord 101 pocket dictation machine being sold by Karl Heitz, a photographic
dealer in New York, acting as distributor for Fi-Cord in the USA.

(The Fi-Cord name originates from Fidelity Recording and reflected the company's
involvement in the sound and vision industry)

I found that Fi-Cord had a UK-based subsidiary based in East Grinstead, Sussex and, having
witnessed a demonstration by their Northern Representative, negotiated an exclusive
distribution agreement for an area 15 miles radius of my company HQ in South Manchester.

This product became a focal point of our involvement in the sale of dictation machines within
this area. Due to our exclusive distribution arrangement, we concentrated on the Fi-Cord
product and, I understand, became the most successful dealer in their network.

During this period I learned quite a lot about the background of the Company and a potted
history as told to me is as follows:

The founder of Fi-Cord was Kenneth Gough. In 1939 he was an officer in the British Army.
When France fell, he evaded the German advance and, in company with a large group of
soldiers, crossed the border into Switzerland where he was promptly interned for the duration
of the war.

The large internment camp was located near Neuchatel and was multi-national with a cross
section people of all abilities. Amongst these was (I understand) a German engineer who had
an idea for a compact recording machine. In those early days, recorders were substantial
pieces of equipment and posed a problem for people on the move.

After the war, development continued and resulted in the first Fi-Cord - the 1A which was built
by Erskine Laboratories in or near Scarborough. This was highly regarded for not only its size
but also its sound qualities. A major customer was, I understand, the BBC who purchased 300
for its reporters.

Further development resulted in the introduction of the Fi-Cord 101 which was designed to be
a pocket-size dictation machine, complete with transcription, foot control and other facilities
similar to many full-size office machines (eg Grundig Stenorette and Philips 81R). This
product was sourced in Switzerland, some production (eg the chassis and mechanical
components) were outsourced with a local Swiss firm but assembly was carried out by Fi-Cord
International SA

An international marketing campaign (with the involvement of a family member Ralph - I think
Ken's son) achieved worldwide sales in over 32 countries.

In the early 1960's, the 1A was replaced by the 202, a fully-featured 'hi-fi' recorder. Again,
this was sub-contracted by Erskine Laboratories, intended for the traditional Fi-Cord market
which also included a range of microphones (Beyer) and other products I was not involved
with. This product was mainly sold by Fi-Cord's own sales team operating from the East
Grinstead base under the direction of UK MD Stan Duer. I am unable to much more
information about this product which really targeted specialised users in the camera, radio and
music industries.

Feedback from the dictation machine market resulted in the introduction of the new model 303,
a more sophisticated version of the 101 with a die-cast aluminium case, a volume control and a
full range of accessories. Also made in Switzerland using the same production lines as the
previous 101 model.

The 303 (and its twin 303A intended as a compatible for the Grundig Stenorette office
machine) was more attractive in the market place and was generally well received.

Due to increasing competitiveness in dictation machine markets, especially for spool-to-spool
recorders, Fi-Cord designed a single spool cartridge along the lines of the Stenorette but the
advent of the standardised C30/C60 cassettes and ultimately the mini cassette were proving
difficult to contend with.

In the mid 1960's, offers were invited for Fi-Cord's assets. By then, Fi-Cord was a significant
product in the range offered by my Company and I looked to find someone who would acquire
the project.

An American-owned Company Erie Technological Products Inc owned, through its subsidiary
in the UK, a number of companies in the electronics business and expressed interest in the
potential which Fi-Cord product range.

However, whilst they had the production capacity to manufacture the machines, they did not
have marketing expertise in the office systems industry.

During 1967/68 various negotiations resulted in the formation of a new UK-based Company,
owned 50/50 by Erie and myself, which eventually acquired Fi-Cord International SA and Fi-
Cord UK. The new company was names Fi-Cord International Ltd.

The manufacturing facility was transferred from Switzerland to an Erie factory in Manchester,
and the marketing exercise was run by me, as Managing Director, with Erie's chairman taking
up the same role in the new Company.

Existing international contacts were maintained and production continued, although the
transmission and chassis components were imported from Switzerland.

For several years, the project was reasonably successful but ultimately it was recognised that a
significant investment would be needed to re-design and compete with products by Philips and
new manufacturers from the Far East.

Consequently, in 1972 Erie decided that they could not commit to a major investment of this
type, and I acquired their shares, continuing with production on a reduced basis whilst re-
aligning Fi-Cord towards other sectors of the electronics office machine industry (specifically
calculators and ultimately computers).

Fi-Cord then became involved as a distributor of these new products with exclusive contracts
with organisations such as Sumlock Comptometer, Monroe USA, Elektronska Indusrija
(Yugosalvia).

The advent of the IBM open architecture PC's and Amstrad's computer made this market sector
even more volatile than had been expected and Fi-Cord International Ltd ceased trading in
1985.

Footnote. I recently acquired the Fi-Cord name and plan to use this in connection with another
enterprise now in its early days, an entirely unrelated project to previous activity

D. A. JarrattOctober 2004